Tag Archive for West Hollywood

The seemingly endless series of LA area elections is finally drawing to a close with next week’s vote in West Hollywood, where Bike the Vote LA endorses John Heilman for city council.

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Lots of important meetings this week.

A meeting will be held from 5 to 7 pm this evening to discuss improvements to 7th Street in DTLA, including possible plans for protected bike lanes. It takes place at the Ratkovich Company, 700 S. Flower Street, Suite 2600.

The Los Angeles Planning Commission will consider the city’s draft Mobility Plan — which includes the previously approved 2010 bike plane — tomorrow on the second floor of the Van Nuys City Hall, 14410 Sylvan Street. According to an email from the LACBC, the updated plan includes a focus on protected bike lanes and complete streets; however, opponents of some projects, including the embattled bike lanes on Westwood Blvd, are fighting their inclusion in the plan. Bike riders are urged to attend, or email James Williams in the City Planning Commission office at cpc@lacity.org to voice their support.

The Griffith Park Advisory Board is meeting at 6:30 pm tomorrow at the Griffith Park Visitor’s Center, 4730 Crystal Springs Drive. The topic of interest is discussion of the Vision Plan for the park, which should focus on removing cars while maintaining access for people, rather than reopening previously closed streets as in the recent Mt. Hollywood controversy.

Prominent Newport Beach bike advocate Frank Peters writes to say he’s given up on SoCal sunshine — and waiting for safer streets — and moved to the damp, but bike friendly city to the north.

The author of cdmCyclist and a member of the committee that helped draft the city’s bicycle master plan, Peters has been one of the leading voices calling for bike safety in Orange County in recent years. And more importantly, actually doing something about it.

But as he points out, while those safer streets are coming, they’re not likely to be built out in his lifetime.

He will be missed in the OC.

Let’s just hope he doesn’t rust up there.

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Local

Employees in the LADOT division responsible for striping streets received an average of over $48,000 in overtime last year. If bike lanes were responsible, as the story suggests, they should have been able to build out the entire bike plan by now.

A Fresno bicyclist died 10 days after he was injured in an alleged suicide swerve. Amazing how many bike riders turn into the path of drivers. Or could it be that the drivers are just passing too closely and blaming the cyclists for their mistakes?

Sad news from St. Helena, as a young Midwestern woman visiting on vacation was killed in a collision with a box truck; the story reports she was turning left from a driveway when she rode her bike into the side of the truck. Update: The victim was a 31-year old Ohio woman celebrating her first anniversary; her husband was riding 20 feet behind and witnessed her death. She may not have been familiar with how to stop the rented fixed gear bike she was riding.

National

Colorado police are still looking for leads in last week’s fatal shooting of a bike rider considered the town’s unofficial mayor.

A Minnesota professor blames social media for last weekend’s water gun assault on Pedal Pubs. Or maybe some people just don’t like them.

Vancouver police tell drivers to shoulder-check for cyclists before making turns or lane changes. I’m not sure suggesting that drivers perform any kind of body-check in hockey mad Canada is a good idea, though.

UK bike injuries are on the increase despite a boost in safety funding, even while pedestrian and motorcycle injury collisions drop dramatically. Of course, the rise could be due to a jump in ridership, which could mean the rate of injury collisions has actually stayed the same or maybe even dropped.

The LA Times looks at the very crowded race to replace Tom LaBonge in CD4, where LA’s pitiful voter turnout and 14 candidates splitting the vote means it could take only a few thousand votes to win the race.

Which means that a single dedicated group — like bike riders, for instance — could be enough to sway the outcome.

A man walking on a Santa Clarita bike path is pepper sprayed, then whacked on the head with an unknown object.

State

The good news is, it’s not going down; the bad news, it’s not going up. Caltrans’ director assures legislators that the state’s funding for active transportation will remain unchanged for the next two years.

San Diego’s Business Association has discovered a great new way for its members to network and get to know each other: form a bike club.

Nice. After a pancreatic cancer patient on a national bike tour had his bike and equipment stolen in Turlock, locals pitch in to get him back on the road.

A cyclist killed in a rear-end collision on a Sunnyvale highway over the weekend was allegedly under the influence of alcohol, which is likely where the investigation will both begin and end, regardless of any other factors.

National

It should come as no surprise to anyone that 75% of people who have had their licenses suspended continue to drive anyway, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Shocking, but not surprising.

People for Bikes offers up five reasons why you should talk your boss into allowing a lunch ride; personally, I usually get my best ideas on a bike.

Bikes are under attack once again in bike-friendly Oregon, as a bill in the state legislature proposes licensing all riders over 18, instituting a mandatory $10 bike registration plan, and barring the use of state highway funds for bike projects.

Next City says cyclists and pedestrians are the best of frenemies, as a Canadian study shows shared paths and sidewalks increase the risk of severe injury. Which you probably already know if you’ve ever ridden the beachfront bike path through Santa Monica.

No. Just no. After a man calls out a bike rider for rolling a stop sign, the rider returns a few minutes later and beats him with a baseball bat.

A 65-year old woman sets off on a 5,000 mile tour around the British Coast to raise money for charity, and takes her golden retriever in a trailer behind her. Which is exactly what I’d do if my wife ever kicks me out, except she’d probably keep the dog.

And the tourists are gone, most of them, anyway. Which means it’s relatively safe to return to our usually over-congested bike paths.

So tell your boss you’re coming down with a bad case of bike flu. And hit the road to show your bike some much needed love for a few hours.

Work will wait.

And so will today’s post. I promise we’ll still be here when you get back.

As for my bike, it’s still sitting in the corner of my office feeling neglected, waiting sadly for the day I can get back on it.

And so am I.

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Governor Brown signed two new bike bills, one permitting protected bikeways — which are currently considered experimental under state law — and another allowing voters to add a $5 fee to car registration on a local basis to fund bike infrastructure.

AB 1193 directs Caltrans to develop standards for protected bike lanes, while at the same time allowing cities to use guidelines included in the NACTO guide, rather than rely on Caltrans, which tends to be overly conservative and decades behind the times.

SB 1183 allows local governments to impose an additional $5 fee on car registrations to fund bicycle networks. However, it requires approval by a two-thirds majority. And getting two-thirds of voters, almost all of whom are drivers, to tax themselves to pay for bike lanes seems pretty damned unlikely.

Very sad news from Portland, as Kerry Kunsman, a League Cycling Instructor and board member of the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition, is critically injured in a rear-end collision while on border to border bike ride. The SDCBC asks for your prayers for his recovery from a severe brain injury.

Update: The news gets even sadder, as I’m told Kerry Kunsman passed away this morning. My deepest sympathy and prayers for him and for all his family and friends.

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According to the New York Post, bikes kill; a bike-hating writer for the paper calls even average cyclists assassins on wheels — neglecting the fact that cars kill roughly 5,000 times more people than the average of six people killed in collisions with bicycles in the US each year.

A helmetless San Diego area cyclist suffers a fractured skull in a solo fall. This is one of the rare instances when whether the victim wore a helmet is actually worth reporting, since relatively slow speed falls are exactly what bike helmets are designed to protect against.

Yes, you’re required to pull over when five or more vehicles back up behind you and are unable to pass, just like any other slow moving vehicle. But only when it’s safe and there’s space to do so.

Or maybe we should, since the LA County Sheriff’s Department is supposed to work for all of us.

Yet as this new YouTube video from WesHigh shows, at least one Sheriff’s Deputy has no idea what a sharrow is. Let alone that bicyclists aren’t required to ride to the ride on a non-sharable lane.

As the video points out, sharrows are not just wayfinding symbols that indicate a Class III bike route, but indicate the preferred position for bike riders within the lane. While you’re not required to ride on the sharrows, if you position yourself on the point of the arrow, you’ll be in the exact spot traffic engineers think you should be within the lane.

Those charged with enforcing the law should know that.

Yet from what I heard from other bike riders, the Deputy’s misconception, while an extreme example, isn’t that unusual for the department.

Many riders have complained about Sheriff’s Deputies demanding that they ride as far as possible to the right, in violation of CVC 21202, which only requires bicyclists to ride as far to the right as practicable. And then, only when traveling below the speed of traffic.

If you’re riding as fast or faster than the vehicles around you, you can legally ride anywhere you damn please, as long as you travel in the direction of traffic.

Yet even if you’re just crawling along, there are countless exceptions to the requirement to ride to the ride — including riding in a non-sharable lane, which is defined as any lane too narrow to share with a motor vehicle. And that includes allowing for sufficient space to avoid the door zone, which is one of those hazards the law refers to.

Which means that virtually every right lane in the Los Angeles area should be considered non-sharable. Especially if it allows parking on the right.

The officer is also mistaken in his insistence that the rider was obstructing traffic. Under California law, that only applies on two lane roadways, and by definition, requires five or more vehicles stuck behind the slower vehicle and unable to pass. If drivers can pass, or if there is another lane to the left they could use to pass if they chose to do so, the rider is not legally obstructing traffic.

As the video shows, this was a four lane street. And drivers were able to pass with ease — including the officer who dangerously chose to speak with a moving cyclist without pulling over to the curb first.

Unfortunately, this brings up a much bigger problem.

While the LAPD has worked with local bike riders to clarify the laws applying to cyclists, and developed a training session to train their officers in just how to — and how not to — enforce traffic laws relating to cyclists, the LASD, to the best of my knowledge, has not.

Just what training their officers receive in bike law isn’t known outside of the department and the officers who actually receive it. Or not.

And while the department may feel their officer training is adequate, this video — and complaints from bike riders around the county suggesting a lack of knowledge and inconsistent enforcement in various areas of the county — would suggest it isn’t.

It’s long past time for the Sheriff’s Department to step up and work with cyclists to ensure their officers understand bike law and enforce it correctly, and fairly.

In the meantime, this video prepared by the LAPD in conjunction cyclists participating in the department’s bike task force remains the state-ot-the-art for bicycle traffic law training among SoCal police agencies.

Even then, it’s only as good as department’s commitment to ensure every officer views it.

Finally, a self-identifying cyclist criticizes a “small, tiny, sub-section of cyclists” — the cam-wearing, lycra-clad aggressively mentally ill subsection, evidently. Something tells me the conversation he relates may not have occurred exactly the way he tells it.

Yes, they have their place, providing on-street wayfinding for riders and positioning them out of the door zone, while sending a clear signal to drivers that we have a right to ride in the traffic lane.

But they don’t give us any rights to road we don’t already have, or one inch of real estate we aren’t already entitled to. And they don’t move riders out of the way of heavy traffic and impatient drivers.

The strictly vehicular crowd will tell you that sharrows are better than badly designed bike lanes that put riders in the door zone. But they are never preferable to a well-designed bike lane that safely positions riders out of traffic and away from danger.

And unlike bike lanes, sharrows do little or nothing to encourage more timid riders to take to the road.

Yet West Hollywood has decided that sharrows make more sense on heavily travelled La Brea Avenue than the long-planned bike lanes that were supposed to be installed in the next few years. And which were supposed to connect with bike lanes that will be installed on the Los Angeles portions of the street under the current bike plan.

Apparently, they’ve concluded that a wide, landscaped median that would beautify the street is more important than bike lanes that would encourage bike riding, reduce congestion and improve safety for all road users.

LACBC regional chapter West Hollywood Bicycle Coalition is leading the fight to keep bike lanes on the redesigned street. So I’ll let them take up the story from here.

Did you know that the city of West Hollywood is planning a huge redesign of La Brea Avenue? It’s is an amazing opportunity to fix a street that currently suffers from some of the worst congestion and hazardous intersections in West Hollywood. Fortunately, La Brea also enjoys a high concentration of great destinations, diverse growth, and proximity to pleasant neighborhoods. A bike lane would be an easy, inexpensive way to capitalize on West Hollywood’s easternmost assets, and effectively reduce the inconveniences of a city that’s growing by leaps and bounds.

Sound the Alarm

WeHo’s Notice of Intent to Adopt a Negative Declaration incorrectly claims that LA plans to paint sharrow stencils on La Brea. But the city of LA has proposed bike lanes — not sharrows — for La Brea Ave in its 2010 bike plan.

If West Hollywood’s portion of La Brea isn’t built with connectivity to LA’s future bike lanes, it could cost a lot of money to fix — and it could even cost lives.

Follow the Existing Guidelines

As luck would have it, the city of West Hollywood has already conducted a study that calls for bike lanes on La Brea. The recommendations of the Bicycle Task Force include the installation of Class II (that is, non-buffered) bike lanes on La Brea Ave. The report was unanimously approved by City Council in December of 2011.

La Brea bike lanes are also indicated by West Hollywood’s Climate Action Plan, the General Plan, and even the request for proposals for this very project.

Wouldn’t Bike Lanes Just Slow Traffic Down?

No. It might seem counter-intuitive at first, but when done correctly, bike lanes can help move traffic along faster.

How’s that? Well, bike lanes keep cyclists separated from faster-moving traffic, eliminating the need for cars to change lanes or suddenly slow down to pass bikes. They also reduce conflicts between bikes and cars at intersections. And dedicated lanes allow bikes to move safely forward through traffic, rather than swerving hazardously between stopped cars.

And of course, the biggest benefit of all: with more bike lanes, more people bike instead of drive, so there’s an overall reduction in traffic on the road.

Safety Over Aesthetics

What’s more important for La Brea: a giant landscaped median that simply looks nice, or bike lanes that can actually save residents’ lives?

There’s no argument that bike lanes will make La Brea safer for everyone — not just cyclists, but pedestrians and motorists, too.

With numerous new pedestrian-oriented projects under construction on this already-busy street, bike lanes are an easy, cost-effective way to reduce accidents and injuries. If the street’s wide enough for a median, it’s wide enough for bike lanes.

So what can you do?

Contact the City of West Hollywood and let them know that we need bike lanes. The comment period for the Notice of Intent to Adopt a Negative Declaration closes very soon: 5pm on February 28.

West Hollywood has just one more week to get the redesigned La Brea Avenue right the first time. So take a moment to take a stand for a safer, complete bike network that would benefit everyone on what is currently one of the area’s busiest and most dangerous streets.

I’ll be emailing them before the week is over. And I hope you’ll join me.

One other brief note.

The West Hollywood Bicycle Coalition is one of the area’s most dedicated and effective groups fighting for better bicycling in the Los Angeles area. If you live or ride in West Hollywood, you owe it to yourself to get involved with them; if you’re an LACBC member, you automatically qualify for membership.

Los Angeles police are looking for a driver who ran down a cyclist near USC and fled the scene, leaving him to bleed in the street.

The rider was hit by a small white car at the intersection of Vermont Ave and 36th Street around 1:30 Friday morning. The cyclist, described only as non-USC student in his 20s or 30s, suffered major non-life-threatening injuries.

Anyone with information is urged to call LAPD South Traffic Division at 323/421-2577.

It’s long past time to get heartless cowards like this off the streets and behind bars where they belong.

Let’s hope WeHo, self-proclaimed as The Creative City, will take a creative approach to carving out a significant chunk of street space to keep cyclists safe and encourage more people to ride. While the city has made some recent moves to accommodate bikes, it’s time to show cyclists the same welcome and tolerance they famously show everyone else.

You don’t have to do a lot of riding, walking or driving in West Hollywood to realize that the relatively compact, traffic-choked city could benefit greatly by providing more viable alternatives to driving. Aside from some steep climbs on the lower reaches of the Hollywood Hills, it is — or at least, should be — a near ideal location for promoting bicycling.

And maybe they could show the Biking Black Hole to their west how it’s done while they’re at it.

While it’s still early in the process, the best way to ensure your voice is heard in the new plan is to join the West Hollywood Bicycle Coalition, an LACBC affiliate chapter that does a great job of engaging civic leaders and fighting for the rights of bike riders.

Many thanks to Matt Baume for the tip. And hey, I’m more than willing to consult, if they’re willing to waive all those technical requirements and stuff.